I picked up my lamp and turned it up, holding the fire poker in one hand. Sebastian, still turned away from me, winced in pain, his hand over the wound feeling for broken bones.
“You stupid girl!” he shouted, throwing a handful of loose dirt into my face. I was blinded but kept a firm grip on my weapon as I went down and tried to rub the dust out of my eyes. I felt a forceful blow to my ribs and the wind was knocked out of me. Then I was thrown over on my back, and the fire poker was wrenched out of my hands. I waited for something awful to happen, something painful. Instead I heard a voice.
“If you follow me one step farther, I’ll drive this fire poker into your heart,” he whispered, grotesquely close to my ear, dripping sweat in my hair. Then he moved away from me and I heard the sound of smashing glass as he destroyed my lamp.
“He’s got the light and our weapon and he’s heading for The Dark Hills,” yelled Murphy. I could hear Sebastian dragging his bad leg as he went. I sat up and tried desperately to clean the dirt out of my eyes. They stung badly, and I could see only a blurry view of the light dancing off into the distance.
“I have no protection and no light, and I can hardly see. This is going well, wouldn’t you say?”
“We can catch him if we hurry,” countered Murphy. He raced down the tunnel before I could stop him, so I followed as fast as I could. My ribs were on fire where Sebastian had kicked me, and I was having trouble catching my breath. Another fifty yards and I’d be finished. The light was getting closer again as I rounded a corner and slowed down. I crept a little farther and saw that Sebastian was in a familiar underground room. The map of the tunnels hung on the wall and he was studying it, looking for the way out.
I knew this room.
I crept in behind him against the wall and looked all around for some sort of weapon I could use. A lighted torch was all I could find, and I quietly moved toward it. Murphy hid in the shadows and waited.
“I told you not to follow me,” said Sebastian. His voice shocked me, and I stumbled over my feet, landing beneath the torch. He remained with his back to me, unmoving.
“I wouldn’t have believed it was you if not for the clues that were left behind,” I said, my voice shaking with fear. “Renny had you figured out first, but Warvold had to be convinced. The clues he left me led to a page in his favorite book describing a mythical elephant god from a fanciful story set on the other side of Mount Laythen at the edge of the sea.” I stood up and groped along the wall for the torch. “An imaginary god called Ganesh.”
There was a long moment of silence in the room. I pulled my hand away from the torch and waited, not sure what he would do. He remained facing away from me, and began to speak in a tired old voice.
“I was lazy, brash, and I didn’t want to work. In Ainsworth a young man with those characteristics had better either shape up or leave town,” he said. Then he turned and looked at me for the first time with his hollow eyes, old before their time. “I did neither, and by the time I was nineteen, I had this.” He pulled his shirt aside and revealed a V branded to his chest. V for vagabond.
“On the inside, we joked that the V was for victory, but the guards in Ainsworth were ruthless. A few vagabonds were killed; many others were beaten within an inch of their lives.” He paused and his eyes went glassy for a moment before he continued. “It’s not as though I really cared — most of the criminals I met were very bad men who’d done awful things. Still, if Warvold had not come along, I am quite sure we would all be long since dead.” He shuffled closer with his injured leg and stood before me.
“But he did emerge, and the officials in Ainsworth were thrilled to rid themselves of us. Warvold was no softy, but as long as we worked hard and obeyed, he took care of us. We ate well, worked hard, and enjoyed a bed to sleep in at night. For many of us, this was as good a life as we’d ever known.” Ganesh turned my fire poker in his hand and examined it absently. There was a strange, leisurely madness about him.
“When the wall was finished, Warvold and his guards escorted us back to Ainsworth as promised. We were all thirty or thirty-five years old by then, beaten down from years of hard labor. We were no longer strong-willed, able young men, and this terrified us.
“Ainsworth never expected Warvold to return us, and they surely didn’t plan for it. After a week of life back in the prison I thought I might go insane. The place was full when we got there, and we nearly doubled the number overnight.
“I talked with one of the guards, and I told him if they released all of the convicts that had worked in Bridewell into the wilderness, I could guarantee that no one would ever see or hear from us again. We would remain in the wild where no one would find us, and if any of us were found, we would expect nothing short of death. Seeing this as a way to rid themselves of us once and for all without having to kill us, the officials agreed to the plan, and shortly after that, under cover of night, they released us into The Dark Hills.” He was growing weary from the pain in his leg, which appeared to have been shattered at the bone from my swing — the pain must have been unbearable. He rocked back and forth and caught himself like a drunk, but he was determined to finish the story.
“Once released, we began planning a takeover of the walled city. Bridewell is a marvelous fortress, and with it under our control, we could bargain with Ainsworth as equals, and turn Bridewell into a trade route between Ainsworth and the sea towns of Turlock and Lathbury.
“Those of us with brands on our cheeks hoped to cover them up with beards. My C brand was conveniently low, and my beard grew very thick, so I was an obvious choice to send out.
“Shortly after our arrival in The Dark Hills, I moved to Turlock. It had just been settled, and only a few hundred people lived there. I immediately went to work on constructing houses and other buildings, and I involved myself in all forms of planning for the town. Within a year, it grew to several thousand people, and I was elected mayor. With no family to speak of, working sometimes twenty hours a day to build the community, I was a natural selection.
“The rest is fairly obvious. You know all about talking to animals, so there’s no sense in my hiding it now. Some of the other convicts discovered the pool and its strange powers. They befriended the hawk, and the hawk befriended the cats.
“I began making trips to Bridewell and started planning the invasion. We needed information that would take time to attain, and there was years of work to expand the already extensive tunnel system. But here we are, many years later, and the invasion is upon us.”
“What will you do now?” I questioned, trying to keep him talking. “You’re cut off from your men, wounded, and found out.”
Ganesh looked at me with a cold stare, the fire poker glistening in his hand, blood oozing down his damaged leg. “It’s refreshing to cleanse the soul in telling my story, but the situation remains obvious: Nobody else knows I’m down here, and there are many ways out. I’ll have to kill you, just like I killed Warvold. With him it was poison, not too messy. Funny how he had no idea — maybe he wasn’t as smart as you all thought he was.” He lost his balance for a moment, then regained it and spoke once more. “With you I’m afraid I’ll have to draw some blood.” I leaped for the torch and grabbed ahold with both hands, waving it in front of me.
“You really think that dried-out piece of wood is going to save you? I think not.” His mood had turned dark and threatening. This was not Ganesh; this was Sebastian. He advanced on me and I began to move to one side, swishing the flame back and forth between us.
He was just close enough to bat the torch out of my hands and drive the fire poker into me when Murphy darted out of the shadows, jumped onto Sebastian’s leg, and chomped down with all his force, driving his teeth deep into flesh. Sebastian screamed fiercely, looked down, and with one brute swing batted Murphy across the room. I was up against the wall opposite the map, nowhere to hide, and Sebastian, fuming with rage, focused all of his years of anger squarely on me. He advanced quickly, ripped the flaming torch from
my hands, and pinned me to the wall with his forearm.
“Aaaaarrrrgggggh!” He screamed and pulled back to drive the fire poker into me. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.
But the impact never came. I heard the sound of wood splintering and I was thrown to the ground. Dirt flew everywhere and I lost sight of Sebastian altogether.
“Murphy, what have you done?” I slid down against the wall and held my knees to my chest.
As the dust settled to the ground I saw Sebastian lying flat on the ground. Standing over him, covered in dirt from top to bottom, was a little man. Next to him was Darius, dripping saliva, his massive gaping mouth hovering over Sebastian’s neck, ready to drive razor-sharp teeth into flesh upon the slightest movement from Sebastian’s body. But the precaution was unnecessary. Sebastian was dead, his neck turned hideously, broken in the fall by the fierce charge of a huge wolf.
“Yipes!” I screamed. I jumped up and grabbed him around the waist, hugging him mercilessly. Then I turned to Darius, touched his ominous head, and pulled him close.
“It’s all right now. It’s all right,” said Yipes. I looked back over my head and saw that Yipes and Darius had crashed through the hiding spot, a big gaping hole where once there was dirt wall. Splintered boards dangled aimlessly into the air of the chamber.
“How did you know?” I said.
“Just a hunch, a hunch is all,” he said. “But Darius is the real hero. He worked tirelessly for hours and hours to crawl down the tunnel and make sure you were safe. The big brute wouldn’t fit, so he had to dig as he went and widen the tunnel. Without him we could not have broken through the wall. He’s as strong as an ox.”
Murphy came hobbling up beside us. He seemed dazed but unharmed.
“Good to see you all back together again,” he said. And then, in a comic whisper to Yipes, “Keep an eye on her, old boy — she’s got a reputation for throwing us small ones around.”
Yipes reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a small, sharp-looking knife. He approached Sebastian with caution, turned his lifeless head to the side, and placed the edge of the knife against his face. He looked back at me and motioned me closer, then he pulled down on the knife and revealed the dark crest of the letter C branded beneath Sebastian’s thick beard.
“I guess that settles it for good.”
I could hardly hear him say it, and then I was adrift somewhere far away where no one could find me, deeper into the tunnels, all the way out under The Dark Hills and into darker tunnels still, until I was so far and deep I could never be found again. And it was very dark indeed.
“Wake up, Alexa. Wake up.”
I felt as though pulled by a cord out into the light, and I awoke to see Father’s familiar, comforting eyes staring down at me. I reached up and grabbed him around the neck. Even with the pain in my side, I held him longer and tighter than I ever had before.
“You passed out,” he said. “Yipes tried to revive you, but couldn’t. He came looking for help in Bridewell.”
I looked over and saw that Pervis was inspecting Sebastian’s dead body. Then he looked at the mess of splintered boards and the opening into the tunnel, and finally with a look of astonishment his eyes fell upon the smiling little man standing before him.
In the silence of that moment it occurred to me for the first time what had happened. Yipes had been in Bridewell, with people — civilized people — which meant it was only a matter of time before he would lose his gift to speak with animals.
“It can’t be,” I said. “Please say you didn’t do it.” I reached for his hand and he took mine, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“It’s been worth it, Alexa. Really it has,” he said. “It’s all been worth it. Besides, I have a good feeling things were about to change out there anyway. This just speeds things up a bit.”
I held on to his tiny hand a long time, my eyes filling with tears, and I whispered quietly, “Thank you.”
Murphy came over and jumped up into the new opening that led out into the wild, and he balanced on one of the boards that had been broken free. Darius was nowhere to be seen. I could only assume that he’d traveled back through the tunnel when Yipes ran off to get help, in fear of being seen by men.
“Come on, Yipes, it’s time for us to go,” said Murphy.
I nodded my approval and let go of Yipes’s hand.
“We’ll see each other again,” he said, and then he hopped up into the hole and I watched him vanish into the darkness. Murphy reappeared, leaped from the edge of the hole, and landed confidently in my outstretched arms.
“You’re a hero,” he said. “Not quite the hero I am, but a hero nonetheless.”
I held him close, rose to my feet, and set him in the hole, and then he too was gone.
“We’ve got to get aboveground, Alexa. This isn’t over yet,” said Pervis.
We left the small, dingy room with its gaping wound, my father on one side and Pervis on the other. It was comforting to have them with me.
“Who’s the rodent?” said Pervis, putting his arm around my shoulder.
“He’s a squirrel, actually — a good one. Talks a little too much, but a nice fellow.”
Pervis laughed and I managed a smile. He had no idea that I was being perfectly truthful.
CHAPTER 27
BEYOND BRIDEWELL
As I emerged from Renny Lodge the rain was pouring down in sheets and the wind was whipping through the town square. Through the clatter of the storm I heard another, more ominous noise. It was the muffled sound of metal and men. The invasion was upon us.
Though I could hear the menacing sound of the enemy coming, I could not see them. They were hidden, and it seemed as though our plan might actually work. During the previous twelve hours every able-bodied person in Bridewell had worked tirelessly to build a wall within a wall. We knew the enemy would come from The Dark Hills’ side, and so, stone by stone, the top half of the wall separating Bridewell from the forest was taken down and put back together again twenty feet high, all the way around the town square. The enemy was trapped inside a prison of stone, not unlike the one I’d been trapped within my whole life.
As soon as all the convicts were inside, ready to pounce on Bridewell in the stormy black night, the explosions were set off at locations coinciding with the map. I felt the cobblestones rumble under my feet as the earth pounded beneath me. The detonations were used to be sure the tunnel would cave in and trap the convicts, a few belowground, but most already out of the tunnel, completely unaware of the trick that had been played on them.
“They will try to scale the walls. We must hurry!” cried Pervis. With a fierce look my father motioned me to return to the lodge, and then he turned and disappeared into the night.
I stood motionless with rain pouring over me, fear gripping my bones. I was terrified that the enemy would escape over the wall and overrun Bridewell, that I might be taken prisoner or worse. A heavy wind gust tore through the town square and I had to brace myself from falling back.
Ladders had been placed all around the wall, and guards were stationed here and there upon the stone shelf on top of the wall. With the wind and the rain they were having trouble holding on, and I feared they might be blown off and tumble to their deaths. Without thinking I began walking, then running toward one of the ladders. I scaled the wall in the driving rain, the pain in my side reminding me with every step of the blow from Ganesh. And then I stood on the top of the wall and I looked down over the edge.
Convicts were standing on shoulders, grabbing hold of the seams in the rock, and scaling the wall. To my left was a pile of rocks, each the size of a large apple, placed there to use as weapons for just such a time as this.
“You there!” a guard yelled from my left. “What are you doing? Get down from the wall!” But convicts were climbing right beneath him as they were beneath me. I couldn’t see across the enclosure, but I could only assume that men were trying to scale the wall all the way around.
 
; I picked up a rock and hurled it straight down, where it bounced off a man’s shoulder a few feet below. He screamed but held his grip, then looked up at me and growled through clenched teeth. I picked up another stone and threw again, this time hitting him on the head, and he toppled over and fell to the ground, alive but injured.
The rain began to lessen and the noise from the enemy drew back. They were gathering in the center of the enclosure, crowding together like shimmering black boulders.
“Alexa!” It was Pervis, running along the top of the wall toward me. When he arrived he sat me down. I hadn’t even realized I was standing on the edge, a gust of wind away from falling to my death.
“What on earth are you doing up here?” he asked. “You could have been killed!”
I looked out into the center of the prison we had built and I realized something wasn’t right. They’d given up their attempt to scale the wall and they were rushing to huddle in the center of the town square. Where were the rest?
“What’s going on, Pervis? Have they retreated into the tunnel?”
Pervis looked at me for a long, silent moment before answering. “We’ve sent men in to check, Alexa, and that’s all there is.”
“Where have they all gone?”
Pervis looked at me, blocking the rain from his eyes with one hand. “They’re all dead, Alexa. Most have been dead for years. The ones in the square are all that remain. Let’s get down from here before the rain and wind pick up again.” He descended partway down the ladder first and I followed, glad to have him watching my steps on each slippery rung. When we arrived at the bottom I noticed a thin bead of blood running down the side of Pervis’s face.
“Why the gash on your forehead? Don’t tell me one of them actually took a swipe at you,” I said. He touched his temple with his hand and wiped away some of the watery blood, grimacing as he did so.
“Slipped on the way up the ladder and bashed my head against the wall.” He placed his hand against one of the massive stones in the structure we’d just spent two days building. “It seems as though the only things causing pain around here are these ridiculous walls we keep building.”